05-15-2012, 10:18 PM
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#1 | |
 Join Date: Aug 2011
Reputation: 140
Posts: 370
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Guess what guys? It's time to take TF2 out of beta!
What? you ask?
Beta? The game came out in 2007, what do you mean "beta"? Well, strap yourselves in, because it is time for THE GREAT TF2 RE-DO What am I talking about? Simply this. TF2 has gone though countless patches, many of which added new content. But is this really what we want? Quote:
No, it's not. At this point in time, we have 113 weapons, not including reskins and stock. 113 weapons, each with it's own unique stats. That's a freakin' lot of weapons, each with it's own usage. So, in my humble opinion, we have reached a point where the game has become too cluttered. Speaking from a game-changing-weapons-only standpoint, we have too many near useless/overpowered items. And many of these weapons block of areas for new weapons to exist. We can't have another knife that gives cloak on stab simply because the Big Earner exists. This must change. So it's time to restart. Get rid of the cobwebs, and keep what is good, while simultaneously opening new weapon slots. I have made a list of several categories, explained below. I would appreciate your feedback on any and all of them, as I'm sure many will be controversial. Note that this is not just a balance thread. I'm commenting on the ideas, and how well these ideas were put into the game as weapons. The Keepers The Examples of Perfection This slot is here for those weapons that are the epitome of balance and fun. They are useful, effective alternatives to stock weapons that bring something new to the table while not being overpowered. All weapons should strive to be in this teir. Kritzkreig Incredibly balanced, extremely useful, raises the skill ceiling of the class... what's not to love? If there's anything SPUF can agree is a great unlock, it's this. Flare Gun Giving a burst damage reward to skilled pyros, the flare gun supplies controlled crits for accuracy, and is all around a well built unlock. Pretty Damn Good These are those weapons that are fairly well balanced, and offer new styles of play. These are almost perfect, but some aspect may cause them to not quite reach the highest tier. From here on out, weapons will be in class order. Direct Hit Rewarding accuracy is always good, and while the direct his is well built, the lack of splash makes the soldier overall less effective, except at removing sentries. However, it was very well executed, especially considering the difficulty in balancing a strong, fast moving rocket launcher. Buff Banner Such an interesting weapon. The reward is awesome, the effort to obtain is just right, and the loss of the shotgun is extremely well balanced. However, it's effectiveness is always limited on the team, , it's situational, and sometimes it is nearly useless. Gunboats Encouraging rocket jumping is always nice, and it is effective in both pub games and competitive. However, it is also situational, and could use combining with the mantreads. Market Gardener Though it is a straight upgrade when crits are off, the fact remains that the soldier is really more effective just shooting rockets. However, I put this here because it really is balanced, and it encourages accurate rocket jumping. Detonator Well balanced, skill-based alternative to the flare gun... good stuff. Det jumping can be one of the greatest things for a pyro, but the loss of health is always difficult to manage. Overall well done, perhaps a little underpowered, but only to those with no imagination. Blutsauger While it does encourage battle medics, it gives smart medics a slightly better chance in a fight, and the negatives are very well balanced with the positives. Jarate Though this one may be controversial, I think jarate was very well done, as it gives the sniper more support ability with the loss of individual protection. Ambassador Great reward-based weapon, very well built, and makes a spy feel like a badass. Quite balanced (except in the hands of Stabby), with a well built damage downside make this a great weapon. Well Executed These are the weapons with good concepts, reasonable balance, but are sometimes too situational or a little overpowered to be truly good. However, they bring enough variety without upsetting balance. Force-a-Nature While it is well built, a good concept, and reasonably balanced, the fact that it is most effective at close range, yet pushes enemies away makes it generally UP. Very fun to use though, and lethal in the hands of some. Bonk! Atomic Punch I personally like this one because it gives the scout viability in spam-filled maps. However, the free getaway it can provide, plus the ability to easily run past enemy defenses is annoying for those defending. Overall, though, it allows the scout more room to maneuver when in sentry-infested territory. Mad Milk While it may be overpowered, it's not by much, and it requires quick thinking and team support to be really effective. Unless you're a pro scout, in which you eat milk-sodden heavies for breakfast. Sandman Annoying as crap, arguably overpowered... but only when you have a ball. Otherwise, you're a half-crippled scout holding a stock bat. Borderline, but fun enough that it should be kept. Boston Basher Border lining useless, the Basher is here only because it has use in competitive game modes, and can occasionally be useful in triple jumping or just melee. Black Box Nice if you don't have a medic, UP if you have one, the Box is a pubbers friend. Though it wasn't thez best made, it is balanced and has it's uses. Backburner Though it is the subject of many complaints, the Backburner is well balanced and rewards pyros for smart flanking. It could, however, do without the 10% damage bonus, and better hit detection. Powerjack Rewarding a pyro who manages to get a melee kill is nice, but it is a straight upgrade from the fire ax. Meh. Back Scratcher Another pub weapon, the scratcher is nice if you don't have a medic. While it was reasonably well done, the 20% damage bonus is unnecessary... this is borderline bad concept; hurting medics is never good. Loch-n-Load Good sidegrade, but arguably UP. One shotting scouts is also annoying; overall it is pretty well done, but has issues. Chargin' Targe and Eyelander I put these together because these basically are their own class; rarely do you see the Eyelander without the Targe or Screen. However, only the Targe should be kept, it at least keeps the demo useful when not demoknighting. Eyelander is a good risk-reward weapon, but demoknight is never really that good of an option. Sandvich Amusing, well balanced, and encourages team play. Perhaps OP, but it compliments the heavy, and the loss of a shotgun can be bad. Killing Gloves of Boxing Extremely fun to play with, but hard to use, the KGB is just to fun to let go. Definitely not OP, it may be a straight upgrade from the fists, but if you're punching enemies as a heavy, you're probably doing it wrong. Frontier Justice While it rewards the engie for doing his job, it is well balanced, has an interesting concept, and relies on accuracy, as 3 shots is nothing, even with crits. Also has a pretty nice model. Widowmaker Aguably OP, the Widowmaker can turn a 150 hp battle engie into... a slightly better armed 150 hp battle engie who cannot make mistakes. The balance of risk-reward is well done, but a bad engie will soon find he can no longer even place a mini-sentry. Gunslinger New, useful playstyle is just what the engie needs. While it may be annoying as hell, it's not OP, it could just use some tweaking. However, it definitely should still be in game. Eureka Effect Freakin' awesomemest weapon ever. Too bad it's kinda UP, unless you're a ninjaneer. Ah well, teleporting is fun anyway. Crusader's Crossbow Skill-oriented unlock, fun to use... but crazy UP in almost every situation. Still well done, however, so it should be kept. Also, nothing like gettin' dem airshots. Overdose Reasonably balanced, and it gives medics a second chance. However, the boost can encourage holding the uber longer than normal, which is never good. Ubersaw While it's a straight upgrade, it at least tries to hide it with -20% firing speed. The uber given could be less, but it's a great idea, and while it promotes battle medicing, it's overall a good unlock. Vita-saw 10 health is a lot to a medic. So is 20% uber. Pretty well built, but also a *straight* upgrade, the vita-saw is a cool concept, done okay, but isn't the best balanced. Bazaar Bargain Rewards for incredible skill? Sure! While it is generally UP, and can encourage waiting for a perfect shot, it's still a good kills=boost weapon. Shahanshah Pretty well balanced, but probably an upgrade. The shahanshashashashasha is pretty well balanced, but isn't all that interesting. Your Eternal Reward Pretty snazzy, but UP. The reward is reasonable, and it forces the spy to think before acting, but just really isn't all that effective. The chainstabs are great, though. Conniver's Kunai Similar to the Reward, the Kunai's benefits are great, but don't really live up to the downsides. A few tweaks, like the overheal not wearing off, would do wonders. This concludes the weapons that should be kept... 33 out of 113 I consider good enough to be worth keeping. Now, for the other 79... The Toss List All these weapons I believe should be removed, for a variety of reasons. I have, however, seen fit to categorize them as listed. Bland While these weapons may or may not be overpowered/underpowered, they are overall bland and should be removed simply because they provide nothing new to a game known for it's innovation. Winger UP, and just boring +damage -clip. Could be interesting if better balanced, forcing accuracy, but really was not done well. Liberty Launcher Not only bland, but a crutch that serves to only make scouts' and pyros' lives harder, while overall taking away from a soldier effectiveness. Cow Mangler All attempts to make this weapon interesting culminated in a giant cluster of confusing stats with an alt-fire that is pretty useless. Interesting ideas were just washed down into a this rocket launcher who only sees usage because it has five shots. Let us open up the alt-fire on the soldier to something interesting. Brass Beast Besides being generally useless, it's stats are redundant with the negatives greatly outweighing the positives. Remove it so a real defensive minigun can be created. Family Business Sorry shotgun heavies, but you guys deserve so much better then a crappy +clip -damage weapon. Something that is actually interesting. Warrior's Spirit Meh. Weakens a heavy so he can have higher damage on a weapon he will rarely, if ever, use. Just clutter, really. Eviction Notice The very definition of a bland +stat -stat weapon. I'm sure all the EN users will be fine with the fists, or something interesting like the KBG. Tribalman's Shiv Yeah, it causes bleed. Wonderful. It's barely noticeable against anything but a spy, and unless he's stupid, he'll either stab you or shoot you three times. Put bleed on something interesting. Southern Hospitality See above. Also, -20% fire resistance? What? Good concept, bad execution These are the weapons where there was thought put into making them, but something went wrong, causing them to be UP or OP. By removing them, we can open up that idea for a new weapon. Soda Popper While I personally like the idea of a charged scattergun, the Soda Popper rewards good scouts and bad scouts equally, and the mini-crits can be frustrating to be killed by. It's an on-off OP-UP gun; making it more skill based with a different boost would be nice. Crit-a-Cola Turning into an even glassier cannon is cool, but 125 hp taking mini-crit damage is crazy. I like the idea of mini-crits on demand, but the downside needs to not be so harsh, or the upside has to be better. Candy Cane So close to being usable. I love this weapon, but the 1 shot rockets and pills is a crazy downside. Fan-o-War The idea of hitting someone to make them weaker is cool, but not when you're more effective by just shooting them Wrap Assassin Ranged bleed is interesting, but there really is not reason to not use this over the bat. Nobody hits people with the bat. Nobody Atomizer Again, nobody hits people with the bat. The downside only applies when you use the third jump, so it's like stock, but with more options. Batallions Backup & Concheror Interesting buffs, but worse than the Buff Banner and more difficult to charge. Righteous Bison Worse than the shotgun at close range, worse than the rocket launcher everywhere... it's really not that good. I like lasers, and I like piercing, but it's so ridiculously UP it's not worth derping with. Equalizer Free getaways, messes with medics, and gives undeserved kills, especially when it crits. A weapon giving boosts when user is weak is a very fitting soldier weapon, but this one, in my opinion, needs to be removed and replaced with, perhaps, a different upside. Pain Train This is a weird one. It's generally an upgrade, unless your opponents have a bunch of heavies, but the team play it tries to encourage never seems to work out. I like the idea, but not many other people seem to agree. Half-Zatoichi Risk-reward weapons are always fun, but extremes never seem to work out. It's like a Powerjack on steroids, but even worse downsides. Disciplinary Action I like encouraging team play, but it's really only effective at the start of a round, and every class but heavies and other soldiers run away while you hit them, leaving you swinging. Degreaser Faster switch is a great idea for a pyro, but no real downside makes this weapon an upgrade from the stock. Phlogistonator Controlled crits are great, but no airblast immediately makes this weapon bad in higher levels of play. Reserve Shooter More controlled (mini) crits. Good stuff, but not when your shotgun loses effective range when you toss a person in the air, as well as lose half your clip. It's really hard to make work, but the idea of mid-air shooting is good. Manmelter Rewards for helping out teammates. I support this 100%, but it's too situational. Needs another upside or a re-make Axtinguisher Rewards ambushing is cool, but it sorta turns the pyro into a bulkier, slightly more visible, spy. The idea of critting enemies is good, but the fact that the only downside is when hitting non-burning enemies makes it easy to negate the downside. Homewrecker More helping out teammates. Nice, but screws with the balance between engie and spy, as well as isn't very effective against buildings. Scottish Resistance Defensive launcher is a good idea, and it almost works, but it's just way to UP in any situation except the start of a payload/AD round when on defense. Pomson 6000 Uber/cloak drain=bad. Shooting through buildings=good. Just remake it, give it some other interesting feature that doesn't screw with Uber, and we're good. Wrangler Controlling sentry is a great idea. Having it be able to tank past a crap-ton of stickies... not so much. Quick Fix Sorry guys, you may not agree, but while quick healing is a good idea, the Quick Fix is just plain worse than the other mediguns, and needs to be completely re-worked. Amputator & Solemn Vow Nice ideas, but straight upgrades. WTF Valve? L' Entranger Good idea, cloak on hit... the weapon is almost useable, but the lack of reliability at distance coupled with the low damage really hurts. A lot. Diamondback Crits for doing your job is nice, but not when it's dependent on the other team's class choice. Big Earner Cloak to escape after getting that stab is great, but the loss of 25 health makes it generally meaningless. Dead Ringer Debatable, but it doesn't feign death realistically, and is really easy to spam until you get the kill. Bad concept These are the weapons that should have never been introduced. Burn them with fire and holy water. Shortstop While not necessarily OP, the Scout is not supposed to have good ranged capabilities. Sharpened Volcano Fragment & Third Degree Useless and highly situational. Nope. The rest of the Demoknight Stuff Persuader, booties, screen, skullcutter, and claidheamh. I would go into depth, but I think the demoknight should not have been given more weapons beyond the eyelander and targe. We don't need more derp weapons. Natascha Slow-down. I hate you. Burn in hell. Tomislav Fast spin up removes one of heavy's main weaknesses. It would be like giving a shotgun to a sniper. Dalokohs Bar Pretty much useless with a medic, and not really effective without one. Takes too long to heal fully. And the idea of getting a buff before going into battle is interesting, but slows the game down unnecessarily, in my opinion. Buffalo Steak Sandvich While it is amusing, forcing a person to use their worst weapon is not something that should be encouraged. Gloves of Running Urgently Speed. Practically for free. On a heavy. Just no. Even if it were balanced, it would mess with the class so much. Leave heavy... heavy. Fists of Steel Turning a heavy into a worthless wall of meat? Not really the best idea to waste one of your power classes as a shield. Huntsman This is a tricky one. Lots of people like it, I used to use it a lot, but in my opinion, it removes the precision of the sniper. It may be more effective at getting damage out, but not for getting that all-important medic, demo, heavy, or turtling engie pick. cont... |
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05-15-2012, 10:19 PM
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#2 |
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Join Date: Aug 2011
Reputation: 140
Posts: 370
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Sydney Sleeper
While I love the sleeper, I have to admit that the whole "no headshot" idea is terrible. It removes precision from the class. Though jarate-on-hit I think is great. Machina I love the tracer, but the piercing is bloody annoying, especially when a sniper can kill you when you can't even see him. It's generally not skillful to get a collateral, it's lucky. Razorback, Danger Shield, and Cozy Camper While the razorback is ok in competitive... just no. Countering only one class is bad, 25 health so you can.... take more damage as a sniper.... and encouraging standing completely still? Please, no. Enforcer Turning the spy into a front-line fighter instead of killing the important classes. Nope. Spy-cicle Ice statues? Great. Silent killer? Cool! Countering the spy's hard counter with very little drawback? Not my cup of tea. So that's it. My list of keeps and tosses, so we can open up stuff like ice statues to other weapons, while simultaneously removing the overpowered/crutchy weapons. Thoughts? |
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05-15-2012, 10:20 PM
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#3 |
 Join Date: Apr 2012
Reputation: 22
Posts: 94
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Inb4PlayOnCustomServers.avi
Seriously though, if you hate it so much, play on custom servers. No-ones forcing you to use anything but stock vanilla. |
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05-15-2012, 10:22 PM
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#4 |
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Banned
Join Date: Dec 2011
Reputation: 1198
Posts: 6,541
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My thought is that you were lacking some when making those lists.
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05-15-2012, 10:22 PM
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#5 | |
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Join Date: Aug 2011
Reputation: 140
Posts: 370
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Quote:
EDIT 2: YOU MISSED IT. I GENERALLY DON'T MIND PEOPLE USING THEIR WEAPON OF CHOICE, BUT BAD WEAPONS MAKE IT SO GOOD IDEAS CANNOT EVER BE USED. WE CAN'T HAVE A CLOAK EARNING KNIFE EVER AGAIN BECAUSE WE ALREADY HAVE ONE, EVEN THOUGH IT'S NOT VERY GOOD. You read that real fast... EDIT: Probably missed a bunch. I skipped the reskins, but if you see a hole, let me know. I know I'm missing the holiday punch and the training weapons, but idk about the rest. List: Dat jag. Oops... Last edited by SubnormalMeat: 05-15-2012 at 10:30 PM. |
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05-15-2012, 10:23 PM
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#6 | |
 Join Date: Mar 2010
Reputation: 216
Posts: 1,721
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Quote:
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05-15-2012, 10:30 PM
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#7 |
 Join Date: Dec 2009
Reputation: 38
Posts: 517
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Every viewers reaction upon seeing the original post
But no. 5no. What;s stopping another cloak on kill knife from coming out just because one already exists? Just make it better and balance it right. |
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05-15-2012, 10:33 PM
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#8 | |
 Join Date: Jan 2010
Reputation: 525
Posts: 3,097
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Quote:
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05-15-2012, 10:33 PM
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#9 | |
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Join Date: Aug 2011
Reputation: 140
Posts: 370
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Quote:
2. Really? Because then we'd have... oh... 40 or so new weapons that DO THE SAME THING as another one, just better. So the garbage piles up. See, my idea was to remove the old one, and replace it, made better and balanced. Compared to yours, the only difference is that I get rid of the one that now just take up space and confuses new players. |
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05-15-2012, 10:56 PM
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#10 |
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Join Date: Dec 2009
Reputation: 217
Posts: 654
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As time goes on, it'll get more and more difficult to create weapon stats that aren't situational in some way or another. Yes, I agree that a lot of weapons do detract from the gameplay or balance, but there are others that you listed that fail to take into account new play styles that they create. I'll say the Degreaser is one weapon that only increases the skill ceiling of the Pyro. The only other weapons that truly does that for the Pyro is the Flare Gun and the Detonator. All other weapons either reward behavior you should be doing anyway, punish Medics, or does nothing for you or the team when it should. In fact, most argue that the Pyro should have gotten the Degreaser long ago, and despite the apparent lack of a downside, very little say that a Pyro is OP with it. Most actually agree that a Pyro is somewhat balanced with it, and that the Flamethrower itself should be fixed.
A whole slew of your list items ignore the same thing. The Huntsman, for example, doesn't get a whole lot of love when it comes to discussion, but in terms of balance, most agree that trading in a hitscan weapon for a projectile can cripple a Sniper in certain circumstances. Most melee weapons, as you say, are barely used. Why complain about them, then? Pyro melees? Sure, I can understand that. Spy melees? Also, yeah. Engy melees? Yep. But all others are hardly used unless a Demoman is Demoknighting and thus should have little effect on the game. Each comes with its own weakness, usually involving you having to get in melee range to use it which is its own downside. In other circumstances, a melee weapon is a last resort weapon from when you run out of ammo in a clip and don't have time to reload (Scouts are especially prone to this). Sure, a lot of weapons weren't designed right. Sure, there are some terrible balance issues. But remove entire weapons from the game because of that? Absolutely not. It'll cause way too much anger among the community, and if it's not broken, don't fix it. If it IS broken (and just search for some threads about balance, you'll find those weapons fast), then try to fix it the best you can. That's why weapons go to the TF2 Beta. Tomislav was fixed for the most part (though it's still annoying), the Enforcer is in there now for fixing, and the Quick Fix should be going there soon. Removal != re-balancing && removal != fixing. Only testing can fix things like this, and though your post seems well thought out, you only looked at each weapon without viewing the context in which each could be and is used. Situational weapons will be created out of necessity when there lacks a general balancing factor in creating new, interesting weapons. It happens. There's no way to prevent it. But the least it does is give variety to the game and allows more choices in team composition to exist. It gives the game flavor. Why do you think it's still being played years after it was released with such a strong fan base? People don't get bored with it. Removing all of these weapons just because they aren't particularly useful or they weren't well thought out is a terrible reason to remove this game's "flavor" and could very well kill the game. I'd rather deal with this for years to come rather than see a thriving community leave a game because of too much change. |
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05-15-2012, 10:58 PM
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#11 |
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Join Date: Apr 2012
Reputation: 850
Posts: 1,994
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While some of this is true, I think it is quite clear at this point that a weapon will never be flat out removed from the game.
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05-15-2012, 11:07 PM
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#12 |
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Join Date: Aug 2010
Reputation: 211
Posts: 1,264
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I wholeheartedly agree with this post, save for your inclusion of the Sydney Sleeper in the 'bad concept' list.
Valve really should...trim the fat, I guess. |
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05-15-2012, 11:15 PM
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#13 |
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Join Date: Oct 2010
Reputation: 107
Posts: 951
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Oh cool, all of spuf's complaints wrapped into one post.
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05-15-2012, 11:43 PM
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#14 |
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Join Date: Jul 2011
Reputation: 28
Posts: 310
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But I love the shiv.
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05-15-2012, 11:46 PM
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#15 |
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Join Date: Dec 2009
Reputation: 32
Posts: 121
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family business is the best weapon in the game.
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